More Movies on UMD Announced

An article from IGN:

PSP Takes You To The Movies
Four more UMD videos announced for PlayStation Portable.
By Nix

February 11, 2005 - Putting a movie in your pocket is one of the biggest draws for mainstream audiences looking at PlayStation Portable, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment today announced four new UMD movies for play on the PSP handheld. These four join the freebie copy of the mega-blockbuster flick Spider-Man 2, which is being given away with the first million PSP systems shipped in North America this March.

The new slate of titles include Sony's home-grown films XXX, Hellboy, Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse and Once Upon A Time in Mexico (which is also rumored to be in the works from Mariachi auteur Robert Rodriguez as a PSP game/interactive sequel.) The movies will be released in North America on April 19th, shortly after the March PSP launch. Other UMD-format videos are also planned in Japan and Europe -- Japanese publishers have already announced intents to release anime movies for viewing on PSP, and Square's Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children DVD movie is still expected to make a PSP appearance as well.

The 1.8GB UMD format and advanced MPEG-4 AVC codec allow an entire feature-length film to be published on Sony's miniature 60mm PSP disc. DVD-like features are also part of the UMD Movie spec -- the PSP menu includes advanced features such as subtitles, alternate audio and video tracks, scene selection chapters, and slow motion and fast foward. UMDs can also hold DVD-like special features -- the disc capacity is smaller than a DVD, and it is unknown if Sony intends to include any extras with its first set of PSP videos, but extra scenes, photo galleries or music bonuses are conceivably possible with the format. And, of course, the 16x9 screen on the PSP conforms to the standard Widescreen format used in most feature films for a full-screen picture on the handheld's brilliantly-lit screen.

Sony Pictures has not announced the price it is planning to release these PSP-playable videos for, but it has mentioned that UMD Movie releases will be available on retail shelves instead of sold through specialty stores. We were certainly impressed with the compression quality of the PSP video demos released in Japan, and are eager to see an entire film to see how the format holds up at feature length and whether it would be worth buying movies for play on the handheld. Be sure to keep an eye out for these releases and whatever else Sony and other motion picture companies have to offer PSP movie-goers.

Article source: http://psp.ign.com/articles/587/587211p1.html

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I don't know about you guys, but until they announce an official price, I doubt I'd even consider buying these.

[Hyjinks]

House of Flying Daggers has also been accounced for UMD

[Luineancaion]

Woohoo full length feature film..... watch lord of the rings with only 2 hours battery life when watching movies!! Great!

[reTch]

if i want to watch movies on a pocket device ill just use my pocket pc. thats one less thing id use my psp for when i get it.

[x999x]

For the price, I'd rather buy a real dvd and convert it downwards myself. Unfortunately, you'd have to be a sucker to buy a 512 meg memory stick, and sony knows this.

[Luineancaion]

It can hardly be called a portable games device when you can watch 1 movie and thats it, or in the case of movies like lord of the rings just 2/3 of the movie.... a portable device needs good battery life and shouldn't need to be plugged into a wall.